It looks like the Owners and Players are going to have a season after all. We won't have too much time to prep for a fantasy season. I am making December 18th @ noon, EST the official draft day. I do not know when free agency for the NBA will happen or when games will start being played. This draft date could be pushed back further. Some basic info about the league:

This will be a keeper league, meaning at the end of the season you keep some of your players to carry forward to next season.

Those returning members will have up to a week prior to the draft to name their keepers. So, if keepers are not sent to me by Sunday, December 11th all your players will go back into the pot and you will draft the same as a new member.

This is a 14 team league. I have sent out 12 invitations so far. Two people have been removed from the league because they were inactive for a long time here at RaptorsRepublic.com. The two open spots as of now will go to the people I have here on my waiting list. If you are not interested in returning please let me know soon so that I can give that opening to someone who is interested.

I've been putting some thought into how to structure the keepers. Here is what we'll do:

Each returning team can use a keeper tag on as many players as they want as long as they fit within the cap.

Each player can be tagged as a keeper twice (ie: you draft the player, you play the season and then you use your keeper tag on the player so that he returns to your team the following season. You can do this two times and as such this will result in you being able to hold a player on your roster for up to three seasons. The keeper tag merely allows you to bypass the draft on a particular player twice.

Each team can franchise keeper tag one player. The franchise keeper tag allows you to keep a player for an unlimited amount of time. The catch here is to use the franchise tag again in the future on a different player you must either trade your current franchise player, drop the player or relinquish your rights to the player during the off-season.

You can choose to not use a keeper tag or a franchise keeper tag. A player who has been keeper tagged can be franchise tagged later provided you don't have a franchise keeper on roster.

I'd love to get feedback on this franchise keeper tag as I've never heard of it used elsewhere in a keeper league.

The 2011 Fantasy Draft

December 18th @ noon, EST

Live Auction

$200(fantasy dollars) draft salary cap

$30 deduction in draft salary cap for each keeper tagged player

$50 deduction in draft salary cap for franchise keeper tagged player

Inverted standings used for auction nominations. (ie: last placed team makes first nomination, first place team makes third last nomination, with the two new teams making the last two player nominations. When I say "nomination" I mean the selection of the next player to be bid on in the live auction draft.)

So technically you can keep up to four players but it's going to cost you 70% of you total draft salary cap. Then you have only $60 left to fill 11 roster spots; that's around $5/player from there on out. I suspect only a few at most will use all four keepers. I don't suspect a lot will use three if they take a look at how much players cost them last draft.

If you have an questions please feel free to contact me. If you wish to be placed on the waiting list then please post here.

You can view last year at any time by going to the main league page and looking for the drop down menu labelled "Season:" in the upper right region of that page. By default it will say 2011 but if you click the drop down you'll have the option to select 2010.

Right now my keepers are Dwight Howard, Rajon Rondo and LaMarcus Aldridge. I am considering franchising Howard or Rondo so that I can also keeper tag DeRozan but it's not all that likely that DeRozan lives up to a $30 price tag this season... Tough choice.

Each returning team can use a keeper tag on as many players as they want as long as they fit within the cap.

Each player can be tagged as a keeper twice (ie: you draft the player, you play the season and then you use your keeper tag on the player so that he returns to your team the following season. You can do this two times and as such this will result in you being able to hold a player on your roster for up to three seasons. The keeper tag merely allows you to bypass the draft on a particular player twice.

Each team can franchise keeper tag one player. The franchise keeper tag allows you to keep a player for an unlimited amount of time. The catch here is to use the franchise tag again in the future on a different player you must either trade your current franchise player, drop the player or relinquish your rights to the player during the off-season.

You can choose to not use a keeper tag or a franchise keeper tag. A player who has been keeper tagged can be franchise tagged later provided you don't have a franchise keeper on roster.

Translation: Regular keeper has a two use limit. Franchise keeper has no limit. You pay a big price for regular keepers and you pay a premium for a franchise keeper(25% of you salary cap)

Thanks brutha. Just too much going on at once. Little guy and starting a new job come January which is likely going to keep me pretty busy. Just don't want to take on too much at this point. I'll definitely be back in the future though.

yo apollo wtf i came 2nd last year how u gonna remove me from the league.... i was looking forward to this to its the only competitive league im in every other league winning is a joke... i want back in u cnt give my spot up i live fantasy hoops

and if you do give me my spot back give dao the final spot cuz i kno him and he'll play, last year we had like 3 guys who joined and didnt even play, and it looks like you invited them back since im the one you decided to kick, anyways we dont need more of that so if you bring me back back give dao the final spot.... Thanx

The reason why you were cut was because I checked your site activity and it said you had not visited since April... I assumed you no longer visited this place. My apologies, I just sent you registration information. Don't delay signing up.